Mississippi road trip: Rules of the road

We are off on our Mississippi Road Trip adventure. Again, we’re a family of four traveling the length of the Mississippi River, some 3,000 miles from the headwaters in northern Minnesota to the mouth at the Gulf of Mexico.

Before heading out, we established some guidelines:

Travel on a budget. We have $2,700 to cover the cost of lodging, food, hotel, and entertainment for 18 days; this comes to $150 a day. We’re not including the cost of driving a car (we’re test-driving a Mercury Mariner Hybrid) or our plane flights or airport related expenses.

Accept freebies from friends. It’s acceptable to dine at a friend’s house along the way and not pull money from the budget but when we receive something for free from a company we will account for the true cost of the service or item in the budget.

Act like a local. Read local papers, listen to local radio, talk to local people.

Travel off the beaten path. Stay off the interstate whenever possible and follow the roads that hug the Mississippi River.

Appreciate our surroundings. Learn all that we can about the Mississippi River by stopping at museums, reading interpretive signs, talking with experts. (My husband is a river scientist, hence the obsession.)

Keep the kids entertained–without the help of a DVD player. Sing songs, play games, look out the window, and bond as a family.

Eat all the pie we possibly can.

We hope to find the best slice available along Old Miss.

Have fun. Relax. Move slowly. Stop to smell the roses.

You’re welcome to nit-pick at our budget and the way we approach our trip. I’m sure some of you would do things differently. But even better, feel free to offer up ideas for places we should visit along our route and tips on how to travel on a budget.